Article excerpt

Missouri snagged an impressive ranking of third in the country
in Financial World magazine's yearly analysis of how governments
handle their money. But social welfare advocates are not
celebrating.

"All it means is that we're stingier than everyone else," said
Peter DeSimone, executive director of the Missouri Association for
Social Welfare.

DeSimone was reacting to Missouri's 1995 ranking in the
magazine's "state-of-the-states report," which appears in the Sept.
26 issue of Financial World. Missouri was third overall in
financial management, managing for results and infrastructure
maintenance.

The states were judged on how well they monitor state-run
programs and how honestly they assemble their annual budgets. In
Missouri's $13 billion budget, "there are no smoke and mirrors as
far as we can see," said one of the report's authors, Richard
Greene.

"There is an ethos high up in Missouri government that calls
for that superior management," he said. Some states routinely
underestimate the budget, only to go back for a midyear financial
fix later on.

DeSimone said Missouri ranks high in one business-oriented poll
because it is tight-fisted with its resources when it comes to such
things as welfare payments.

"We haven't given a cost-of-living increase in welfare for over
12 years," DeSimone said. "Our maximum welfare payment is $292 a
month for a family of three. That's not enough to pay rent and
utilities, let alone eat."

Missouri is 39th in the amount of aid to families with
dependent children, behind such neighboring states as Illinois
($367 a month) and Kansas ($403).

But Greene and co-author Katherine Barrett did not hand out
rankings based on social policies.

"We are not, in the slightest, as far as rankings, concerned
about quality of life or policy," Greene said. …